Deeptech 

Elon Musk meets his match in German unions

Tesla founder Elon Musk is building a giant factory just outside of Berlin to produce 150,000 Model Y cars a year for the European market. 

But he may not quite have factored in Germany's powerful unions, who have already got in the way of one big US firm (Walmart) moving into the country.

And Musk is not, er, famous for smoothing over tensions with those who get in his way. Let the fireworks commence!

Sifted's Miriam Partington in Berlin tells the story.

🛠️ Building tech teams 101 🛠️ 

What technical skills and tools does your team need to have at seed stage? What types of managers would be perfect for your business at Series C?

Find out from top European tech leaders such as Alan and BlaBlaCar in our report with Circle CI.

Download here.

 Impact 

14 startups making European fashion sustainable

Sweden’s Material Exchange this week became the latest startup to raise money in the field of sustainable fashion, closing a €5m round.

It's a booming area, amid a growing recognition that fashion — and in particular fast fashion — is horrific for the environment.

Who is out there changing fashion for the better?

 Italy 

Rape case another blow to Italy's weak startup scene

Italy’s startup scene doesn’t have a lot of successful tech entrepreneurs.

But this pool of local talent got even smaller this month when Alberto Genovese, who founded a string of successful tech startups over the past decade, was accused of raping an 18-year-old while on drugs at his home.

What happened next? And what does it say about Italian tech? 

📈 Which are Europe's fastest-hiring scaleups? 📈 

There was $5.5bn invested into European Series B funding rounds this year — three times the level of a couple of years ago. 

But which startups are using that money to hire the fastest? Is it Hopin? Or Swappie? Or maybe PlanRadar?

Find out here. 

 Fintech 

Fintechs should learn the lessons of Wirecard and Lanistar

Can we really trust in the fintech revolution?

The last few months suggest perhaps not, says Peter Cox, the founder of payments company Contis, pointing to Wirecard and Lanistar. 

Do you agree?

News that matters

💥 One in four tech companies in London fear they may not survive the impact of a no-deal Brexit, according to a new survey by Tech London Advocates. The results of the survey, which polled 238 tech leaders and investors in London, suggest most concerns lie around the availability of capital, particularly for early-stage startups, as well as around supply chains and hiring. 

🤷 F3, a new-ish social media app from Latvia that fits into the "very hard to understand if you are not a Gen Z" category, has raised a $3.9m seed round and said it has plans to expand into the US market. The app lets users send each other questions, photos, videos and reply to each other’s posts — all anonymously. This anonymity, apparently, helps with honest conversation. F3 already has more than 25m registered users on the app, with about 85% of them under the age of 25. The founding team was previously behind social networking site Ask.Fm, which grew to more than 150m users before it was sold to IAC.

📦 Amazon warehouse workers will stage a series of coordinated protests, strikes, and actions today (Black Friday) to demand the online retailer respect workers' rights to participate in union activity, stop circumventing tax laws and commit to higher environmental standards, according to the event's organisers. The day of action is being called #MakeAmazonPay. For more on Amazon's European challenges, see the first part of our series here. Also see the Musk piece above for more on US giants vs unions.

💰 Klarna is looking to acquire more companies, product VP David Fock tells Sweden's Di Digital. “We look broadly at acquisitions and discussions with lots of companies all the time," he says. For more on Klarna's massive global ambitions, see our deep dive piece here. And for a chance to invest in them yourself, check out this piece here which tells you how. 

🏄‍♀️ Radinn, the maker of electric surfboards (how lazy is that!) is looking to IPO next year, according to the chief executive. Is that because it could not get private funding? Or is it just so confident it is heading to the public markets? 

🎁  WeGift, the London-based startup that has built an “incentive marketing” platform that lets businesses easily issue e-gift cards and other digital rewards to customers, has raised $8m in new funding — just in time for Christmas.

🚴‍♀️ UK e-bike manufacturer FuroSystems has closed its first VC funding round of £750,000 with participation by TSP Ventures and European impact investment bank ClearlySo, as well as a number of angel investors. E-bikes are very hot right now, as Sifted has written about here and here. 

🍲 Dija, a new UK-based startup founded by senior former Deliveroo employees, is closing in on $20m in funding, according to a scoop by TechCrunch's Steve O'Hear. He says that the round is being led by Blossom Capital.

If you're a fan of our 'News that matters' and 'Sifted Suggests' sections, check out our newsfeed here, where we collect all of these gems — and more.

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Sifted Suggests 

🥤 Another day, another New Yorker article about how terrible VCs are with a familiar line up of case studies about WeWork and Theranos to back up the argument. Surprised they did not mention Juicero as well. But even if you don't agree, the New Yorker on tech is always worth reading as it is tightly argued and written. So give it a read —even if just to hate on it. 

🔬 One of France’s biggest research labs, CNRS, is making a push on entrepreneurship, according to Le Monde. This is exactly the kind of marriage between fundamental innovation and business that policymakers in Europe will help the continent keep up in the global tech race.

🚀 A quick but interesting read by Maddyness about the French space tech accelerator programme — called BLAST — which is backed by Bpifrance. It also points to governments who are pulling their weight between startups, research and innovation. 

In case you missed it 

🦄 Europe now has 60 startup unicorns. How many do you know?

🔫  Pablo Escobar’s brother is suing Klarna for millions.

🍆  Good vibrations — men’s sexual wellness gets the tech treatment.